lilyandjude

Thanks for all yor help. We got sorted out and found our first two caches yesterday. The kids loved it! Going out for three more today....can't wait.

does it look like this? http://www.gpsinformation.org/larry/exploristse/Compass.JPG in this picture, red seems to be north and yellow seems to be south. the numbers in the circle are the degrees (3 = 30 degrees), which you can pretty much ignore. the black arrow seems to be the direction you're currently headed, but note that this will only be right if you're actually moving. the yellow dot outside the circle is where the sun is at. if you put the GPS on the ground and rotate it so that this yellow dot points to where the sun is at now, then all the other arrows and markers will be correctly aligned too. in this screenshot, apparently there is no active waypoint set. when searching for a cache, the cache is your waypoint, and in the top right corner it will show you the distance to this waypoint (the cache). if there's a second marker on the outside of the screen, that's probably pointing to the waypoint as well (OR it could be the moon - for the active waypoint you should see another arrow then). in order to use this marker properly, you need to make sure the circle in the display (and thus maybe the GPS itself) is rotated and aligned the right way. you can do this either by holding it in your hand and start moving in a straight line, or by aligning it with the sun as described above. note that once you stop moving, the circle won't update or rotate any more, so if you stop and then turn around on the spot, they arrows and markers will all point in the wrong directions. note that the two text fields shown in the compass screen are user configurable, so they may not show the distance to the waypoint on your GPS yet. if that text field doesn't show, you need to set up the screen so that it does. So, based on the picture you linked to; and by the way, that is exactly what my gps looks like...thank you; do i make sure that when i am moving, the black arrow lines up with the waypoint of the cache? If I understand you correctly, i need to move so that the waypoint is always at 12:00 oclock ideally. Also, the numbers in the top right field...does this represent my distance to the cache and is it in miles? Will try again tonight.

My gps compass screen shows two arrows. A red one and a yellow one. There are also two markers on the outside of the compas which are supposed to represent the direction of the cache and I'm not sure which the other is. Are the numbers at the top right my distance from the cache in miles? eg. 0.46 mi. If I follow the map function on the navigate option, the arrow changes as my direction changes but, the distance from the arrow to the cache never changes. Is this screen just supposed to tell me that I am heading in the right direction? My kids are getting pretty pumped about finding and possibly hiding their own cache but, unless I can get results soon, I'm afraid they will lose interest.

Trying to get into geocaching with my kids. I bought a Magellan eXplorist 500 which was very affordable and, from what I read, a decent starter GPS. Here's my problem, and I feel pretty stupid posting it here...I can't read the darn thing. I'm not sure what I'm looking at or what I should be looking for. I am able to download coordinates and we went out to seek our first cache but, should I be using the compass or one of the other screens? Plus, other than the coordinates, I'm not even sure what the other numbers mean and, nowhere in my GPS box or in the manual does it tell me what all the different numbers etc. represent. I know this isn't rocket science so, why is this so confusing to me. I'm just about ready to return this GPS and call it a day on geocaching. PLEASE HELP!